In response to Christine Tacon’s announcement that the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) will be launching an investigation into Tesco’s relationship with its suppliers between 25 June 2013 and 5 February 2015 Business Secretary Vince Cable said:

This is an historic day for the Groceries Code Adjudicator and shows we have created a regulator that has real teeth. Last week I secured the final agreement in government to proceed with legislation to enable the regulator to impose hefty fines for those supermarkets found guilty of mistreating suppliers. I have also agreed an increase of almost 40% in the adjudicator’s funding for the coming year so that it can carry out its important work. Now that a formal investigation has been launched, I would encourage anyone with any evidence of wrongdoing to come forward and to be confident of being able to do so confidentially as their anonymity will be protected by law.